


with you, it's different

by Bijouu



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Break Up, References to Depression, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:40:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26612344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bijouu/pseuds/Bijouu
Summary: Please, please. Taehyun remembered pleading for someone to remember him. He felt selfish for wanting attention, someone’s attention, anyone’s attention, but could he be blamed? His heart reached toward any soul within range, but Taehyun had long since given up on falling in love anymore. The skies were too clear, and the moon cast a long, evening shadow. The sunflowers in the field were better left admired from a distance.
Relationships: Choi Soobin/Kang Taehyun
Comments: 11
Kudos: 57





	with you, it's different

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is twt user @soobimoroll with a late night upload. Please enjoy!

The worst part of living with his heart on his sleeve was when people brushed by and irritated its still-healing scabs. The worst part about loving everyone was that not everyone would stay. Taehyun didn’t cry; he’d gotten over crying over things he couldn’t exactly help. For someone who pushed someone away as much as he did, he found himself wishing for someone to extend their hand to his. What good would that be? Taehyun always pushed away. The habits Taehyun had created over time were a comfort, or at least, the routine helped a little with the fear of losing those hands again. 

This much into Taehyun’s life, he’d learned that there was a difference between trying to hold and mend a salvageable thing, and not holding onto something that would vividly be there, but only for a fleeting moment. Taehyun believed in love at some point.

Love was his first relationship’s energy and fire. It was climbing on rooftops with shitty, flat soda. It was leaning onto Yeonjun hyung’s shoulder when it became late and cold. Taehyun didn’t have a word for it then, when they spilled their secrets to each other, quiet and gentle, but explosive between their feelings. The two of them wanted to belong, and they could belong with each other if they understood each others’ struggles. 

Shoulder to shoulder, Taehyun thought he could feel Yeonjun carefully navigate around the heart on his sleeve. Love was feeling perfect in that moment under blank skies.

“I think you really understand me,” Yeonjun had confessed, and his smile was pure. It didn’t hurt, when Yeonjun kissed him then. 

Caught in a daze, Taehyun felt like he could stay on dusty rooftops with Yeonjun for as long as the skies stayed above them. On the nights where the schoolwork and expectations were overwhelming, Yeonjun didn’t hesitate to put his warm palms on Taehyun’s face. They shared a breath, but that was really all they needed.

“I feel like…” 

What did Taehyun feel? He wanted to sleep, really.

“I don’t know,” he finally sighed. Yeonjun didn’t answer him at that time. The two of them had fallen so fast. When Taehyun blinked, it was as if time passed in days and weeks and years, and suddenly, Taehyun was alone on the rooftops again.

The distance didn’t happen overnight. They lit the flame together, but no one stayed to keep it burning brightly. Their shadows were cast in completely opposite directions, but they tried to check in with each other from time to time. 

Life was busy, fast paced. Their relationship had started that way: busy, fast paced.

“Hey, we’re not the same as before,” Taehyun commented. From his place in the kitchen, even the little bit of distance between him and Yeonjun felt like too much. Maybe he hadn’t understood Yeonjun. Maybe he was the only one reaching into the space between them, hoping to find Yeonjun’s hand. He watched the older spoon sugar into his coffee.

Taehyun counted the spoonfuls. One, two, three.

“I don’t mean to do it on purpose,” Yeonjun apologized with a frown.

Even if he didn’t mean it, even if it wasn’t on purpose, it still hurt.

“I’ve been working so hard for this,” Yeonjun reassured, holding Taehyun by the waist. Somehow, Taehyun couldn’t discern if he was talking about his career or their relationship together. Was it any different? He knew how ambitious Yeonjun was, knew how his life was driven by goals, by the need to succeed and thrive. “I haven’t paid enough attention to you, but you’re not any less important to me, Taehyun-ah. You don’t mean any less to me.”

Taehyun was driven by his own goals too, but the bright red lettering at the top of his daily checklist simply read “Live” these days. 

But he could understand Yeonjun too. Despite all of this, their time together, they were practically strangers. 

“You’ll get in for sure,” Taehyun sighed, running his hand down Yeonjun’s shoulder, down his arm. He hesitated to hold his fingers. “I want the best for you, hyung. Always.”

Perhaps they’d never been on the same page to begin with. 

Taehyun never minded independence; self responsibility was one of his values. It was something that he tried to remind himself of, when going headfirst into relationships like this. Not everyone could handle his baggage, and in a way, it wasn’t really theirs to try and pick up anyways. No matter the weight that Taehyun carried on his back, he’d rather shoulder that pain than make someone believe it was their fault or responsibility to lessen it off of Taehyun’s shoulders.

But still, Taehyun just watched and watched.

Yeonjun became another star in the once-blank sky. Taehyun tried so hard to hold on at first, messages sweet, past one A.M, in radio silence. There he was again, on the lonely rooftops with only one can of shitty, flat soda.

_'Hyung, I saw your interview this morning._   
_Everyone smiles when they hear your songs._   
_I’m so proud of you.'_

Please, please. Taehyun stared at his phone, unread messages looking ugly, uglier than the blue light, turning the city lights into nothing but ugly blurs. He no longer craved the touch from before- but he did though- he wanted the warm palms again on his face. Taehyun wanted to be guided back down, away from this height. It looked so artificial from all the way up here.

Taehyun watched as he did. Reaching when there was no hand, that was an irreparable tear. He didn’t know what he expected; being gentle with a heart that yearned as quickly and deeply as Taehyun’s was… wasn’t that tiring? Had it been too tiring for Yeonjun?

It had to have been.

It wasn’t tiring when they stayed up late, speaking so closely, it was lips on skin. Whispers, promises onto the back of each others’ hands, the words protected between their palms whenever they hold hands. 

Now, Taehyun looked into the grooves of his empty palms.

Head line, life line, heart line. Yeonjun had been them all.

Reaching into the dark wouldn’t do a damn thing. Even Taehyun’s sun line became nothing. Taehyun became nothing.

“Taehyun-ah, I miss you, and I’m sorry.”

No, Taehyun thought. But he smiled anyways. One last hug, one last feeling of the warm palms on his skin. Yeonjun dreamed and climbed a ladder to the stars, but Taehyun’s heart fearfully tethered him to the ground. Where Yeonjun was floating in the cosmos, Taehyun’s gravity shoved his frame deeper into the earth. He wished he could be consumed by its soil.

“I missed you too,” Taehyun replied. It had been the truth. All the way in the sky, Yeonjun sat on the moon and pointed out all the stars for Taehyun, like he owned the entire starry sky.

He knew how hard Yeonjun had tried to achieve this dream. He knew that Yeonjun’s hand blistered and bled from pulling himself up into the sky. Taehyun had been there to encourage him onward. Now, all the way up there on the moon, there were no more painful tears. That much, Taehyun was at least happy for.

Instead, it was Taehyun on the rooftop, admiring his heart’s affection through an old telescope. Bright city lights around did nothing to drown out Yeonjun’s shine. He was too brilliant. 

Building, accumulating messages, Taehyun frustrated to the point of small tears, arms wrapped around his body. His own palms on his face instead. Taehyun knew when it became useless to hold on.

“Keep being the brightest,” Taehyun murmured his goodbye.

Yeonjun was sad.

(Yeonjun was relieved, but Taehyun already knew.)

It hurt, when Yeonjun kissed him then.

He’d be fine.

The worst part of living with his heart on his sleeve was that hiding the pain felt like a guilty secret. The worst part of loving was that not everyone has to love you back. Taehyun had been okay with it at first. Bruised, still cut, rejection made his heart afraid of most things, but Taehyun refused to close in on himself. It wouldn’t be terrible, if he could just continue to try.

Routine was nice. Routine was familiar. 

(He just couldn’t do it.)

Taehyun gathered his mail from the mailbox, finally, after a long time of ignoring its existence. He knew that it was irresponsible to have let it pile up as much as it did, but the more that Taehyun thought about it, the more the demon grew in his mind, until finally, he just couldn’t take it anymore. His fingers trembled around the keys when he’d seen just how many letters had been shoved into the small box.

It felt too real. Like all the secrets and feelings he’d shoved deep inside himself. In fact, Taehyun was afraid to feel.

The distance between him and the box seemed to grow.

“Oh, sorry, can I- squeeze past you real quick? Just to the other side.”

Taehyun blinked himself back, breathing sharply through his nose as if just to remind himself that he existed. “Yeah, sorry,” Taehyun mumbled, moving out of the way so that the person could also get to their own mailbox. 

Love was watching the stranger get tangled up with his too-long dog leash, it was how the stranger’s nervous laughter only seemed to increase in pitch when Taehyun bent down to try and set them free from their own dog. Love was detangling the stranger’s dog from its leash, only to get a face full of puppy kisses.

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry, so so sorry,” The stranger groaned. “Milo, down!” 

Love was finally feeling something after months of feeling nothing at all. It was the person’s flushed face and the moles on his face, an introduction so slow that it was nothing like the whiplash, the burn that remained after being splashed with hot water. It was nothing like how he’d fallen for Yeonj-

_‘Don’t say it, don’t say it. Why do you always dream of the past?’_

“Let me make this mess up to you,” The stranger had sheepishly smiled. “Do you need help carrying your mail?”

Oh right. The mail. The mail that Taehyun had let accumulate, because he couldn’t function as a human for a while. The mail that rested in the mailbox like there were any important letters from any used-to-be important someones in the stack. There wouldn’t be.

There wouldn’t be, since those someones were still important.

“I won’t say no,” Taehyun cautiously answered, but the stranger’s smile was so infectious that he couldn’t help but melt too. They split the stack, half and half, and left the mailbox with their keys dangling from their fingers and that silly maltese puppy at their ankles.

It was slow, a warm candle lit in the middle of a dining room table. The cute stranger’s name was Hueningkai, and he lived with his boyfriend, Beomgyu, on the first floor. They moved in just a week or two ago. Their home was filled with art and music and brightness, and Taehyun was there more often than he was at his own place.

They pulled him away from the rooftops, fed him full with sweet fruits and ice cream. Taehyun’s heart beat for them. When they held his hands, swinging them when they walked, it was just a bandaid over Taehyun’s heart, who wanted to try climbing and climbing invisible ladders.

The gravity was strong, between Taehyun and the floor, but he felt caught in their orbit, just as he’d once been caught in the moon’s pull.

Did Beomgyu even realize it? He laughed so prettily that it made creases by his eyes. He cared so fully, when Taehyun confessed how difficult it had been for him to sometimes put words to what he thought or felt, Beomgyu didn’t force him to hurry. “Taehyun, you don’t need answers to questions you don’t even have.”

Did Hueningkai know? All he needed to do was smile, and the entire world would smile back to him. “Mhm. Do things slowly, and enjoy your life.”

This love was different to Taehyun.

Together, under the sun, Taehyun could feel his shadow grow longer and longer. Beomgyu and Hueningkai were perfect as they were - sunflowers who faced each other instead of turning their faces toward the sun. 

This love was unattainable. It was never his to begin with.

“I think that I…”

What did Taehyun think? He just wanted to sleep, really.

“I’m so happy for you both.”

Routines were comfortable, but Taehyun hated feeling bitter over Beomgyu and Hueningkai’s happiness. It wasn’t right of him to feel so irrationally as he did, but even as they kissed and enjoyed company with just the two of them, Taehyun remained a bystander.

Happy for them. If all they needed was for Taehyun to be happy, he could be happy for them.

Why did he imagine it so often though? What if they turned their heads to Taehyun instead? Would they see the long shadow an old moon had stretched behind him? Would they see the one made by the midday sun?

They were never Taehyun’s to begin with. Their vows to each other had been beautiful, and Taehyun counted the petals on the decorations on the table later that night. He thought about the mail once again piling in his mailbox, unknown to both Beomgyu and Hueningkai.

He wanted to pluck their petals; he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me…

_'They love me not.'_

But that was okay, Taehyun thought. When they danced, their sunflower faces were turned in toward each other, and Taehyun kept still, not wanting to be the breeze that disturbed their leaves.

“Thank you for coming,” Beomgyu whispered to Taehyun, hugging him goodbye.

“We love you so much, Taehyunnie,” Hueningkai added. Their breaths were warm on Taehyun’s neck as they embraced, just the three of them.

It was useless to hold on; Taehyun had nothing to begin with. He could hear Yeonjun’s song, something soft and romantic, playing through the speakers in the hall, and he imagined himself on the rooftop again. No; he’d been pulled into a fragile field.

“Enjoy your lifetimes together.”

He’d be fine.

Please, please. Taehyun remembered pleading for someone to remember him. He felt selfish for wanting attention, someone’s attention, anyone’s attention, but could he be blamed? His heart reached toward any soul within range, but Taehyun had long since given up on falling in love anymore. The skies were too clear, and the moon cast a long, evening shadow. The sunflowers in the field were better left admired from a distance. 

The worst part of living with his heart on his sleeve was finding someone else who did the exact same thing. The worst part of loving was that Taehyun couldn’t manage the fear and unknown as he once had been able to.

He had been wary at first, when he’d first met Soobin. He thought about the crazy patchwork that he’d sewn up on his sleeve, to hide his heart and shove it way deep inside, but soon realized that he could practically see Soobin’s too. He was proud of it; even if it was as tattered as Taehyun’s own. Taehyun thought about his mailbox. He thought about what else he could keep shoved into it; feelings that he hadn’t felt in some time.

Taehyun didn’t listen to the radio anymore. There were too many pretty hit songs, made by pretty hit singers that had once had their pretty, warm palms on Taehyun’s face. Taehyun didn’t like going out on sunny days as he once had. There were too many memories of swinging hands, of murmured sweet things and ice cream, stealing sprinkles off of each other’s cones like it was meant to be like that. Those memories had moved away, to live together happily, and Taehyun didn’t want to bother them with his life or troubles.

Taehyun told himself he didn’t care anymore. He didn’t care about love so much, anymore. 

Soobin told him that he cared a lot about love.

“It’s scary to try things over and over,” Soobin had whispered to him. At the café, Soobin’s long legs under the table scrunched up and bumped into Taehyun’s ankles from time to time. He tried not to flinch at the contact. “Failing isn’t easy.”

“You sound like you have experience in that,” Taehyun said, the end of his sentence lifting up like a question. He didn’t expect Soobin to laugh a little through his nose.

“Yeah. I do,” Soobin answered honestly, picking his eyes up from the part of the table he’d been messing around with. 

Soobin wasn’t a person who had a ladder extending into space. He wasn’t someone who fixed his eyes on the pretty flower petals in the field. He experienced things in full, and although he had such a joyous outlook on life, Taehyun realized he wasn’t that much different than himself.

“Have you ever been in love, hyung?” Taehyun asked, one rainy night. Between the both of them, the city lights coming in from the windows weren’t so blindingly bright. They preferred to sit in the dark together.

Soobin sighed, watching Taehyun’s expression carefully. “Many times,” he answered. “But now I know what love feels like.”

“So what does love feel like then?” 

“Love feels like a million and one things. Love feels like… all at once, but like it takes forever. Don’t worry about falling in love, Taehyun-ah, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Taehyun didn’t want to worry about it. He was fine, this way. Even if his heart had started to beat for Soobin, even if his heart was trying to dig its way out of the patchwork that Taehyun had tried to hold it in place with, he would be okay just like this. He only needed to be friends with Soobin. The two of them were close enough as it was.

He kept a safe distance between them. Taehyun didn’t want to feel anymore. He knew that Soobin cared about him, and though it made his heart race in his chest, at the same time, it made Taehyun want to cry. After Hueningkai and Beomgyu, there had been people that had come and gone, but before they came too close, Taehyun had been the one to push them away.

Taehyun knew that he was being afraid, knew that he was behaving as if the worst were to come, but sometimes, it was only the worst that happened. He wasn’t ready to love again; he wasn’t ready to face Soobin and his gentle smiles. He wasn’t ready to be pulled into reassuring hugs. 

When Soobin hugged, he bent down carefully and engulfed all of Taehyun in his arms. The first time it happened, Taehyun’s eyes had prickled with tears, and he fought them back down, shoving the feelings into a box just like the mail was shoved into the mailbox. He’d return to the feeling later, when he had the right words for it.

“Taehyun. Let’s wash your dishes today.”

It was embarrassing, the first time that Soobin had visited Taehyun’s place. He hadn’t realized the mess that he’d left inside of there. The coffee mugs that had piled up on his desk had ruined Taehyun’s brain, eating at his productivity, screaming: _I_ _f you just cleaned us up, there wouldn’t be such a mess anymore. Why couldn’t you just clean it up when there was one cup? Now look at all the mugs, Taehyun-ah, look at all the mugs_. 

And Soobin hadn’t judged. He gathered the mugs in his hands, brought them to the sink.

Taehyun and Soobin washed dishes together. 

Taehyun always pushed people away. He did it with or without them knowing. If he pushed them away first, then he wouldn’t have to feel the extent of the hurt. It was unrealistic, but Taehyun wished that some of them tried to stay, but no one ever stayed.

Falling in love hurts terribly so. Taehyun thought about all the loves that he let slip by. He’d pulled back too far, he had clung on so much. He didn’t want to be alone, but he found himself bouncing between the field and the rooftop. The difference in the heights made him nauseous, dizzy. 

He wished he’d climbed the ladder up into the sky too.

He wished he’d ran through the field when he had the chance.

“I’m worried about you,” Soobin whispered to him one night. “I can’t tell what you’re thinking. I don’t understand you.”

He didn’t understand either. When Soobin turned his teary face toward Taehyun, Taehyun’s heart fell down, down into the soil. Where he’d once wished he could bury himself and stay there forever, Taehyun had only wanted to dig his heart up and place it by Soobin’s, if only just to keep those tears out of his eyes.

“Hyung,” Taehyun murmured, taking the other’s hands in his. He could feel the grooves in Soobin’s warm, wide palms. Head line, life line, heart line, sun line. Taehyun traced his fingers over them. “I don’t… I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I feel like…”

What did Taehyun feel like? 

Before, he wanted to just sleep, but that was before he met Soobin.

“There,” Soobin had interjected. “I’m worried because… I think you’re not letting yourself feel. Let me take care of you. You have taken care of hyung too.”

Had Taehyun even done anything? He thought that he’d become nothing a long, long time ago. “I don’t think I’ve done enough for you,” Taehyun confessed, feeling like his heart was shattering over and over. He was the one taking a mallet to it. If Soobin wouldn’t break his heart, he would be okay with doing it himself. As long as it didn’t make Soobin any more upset than he already was. 

“You don’t realize it. I’ve been facing you this whole time,” Soobin sighed, squeezing Taehyun’s hands in his. It reminded him of sunny days and ice cream dates. Instead, it was just Soobin and him, their hands together. They kept promises between their palms. Soobin was a different kind of flower, and instead of facing the sun, he was facing Taehyun. “We’re similar, aren’t we?”

Perhaps they were similar.

“Tell me, Taehyun-ah. Tell me you care about me.”

Taehyun felt the fear shove him down, like gravity forced the words into his lungs.

“You don’t have to do it quickly,” Soobin reassured. “But… You can correct me if I’m wrong. I felt like you and I…”

_'Complete each other.'_

Taehyun had witnessed some of Soobin’s rough nights. He dragged Soobin up onto the rooftops, gave him shitty, stale soda. Soobin pointed out the stars in the sky, but didn’t forget to compliment the city lights. When Soobin was overwhelmed, just like Taehyun could be at times, when work left him anxious and bubbling with shaking hands and churning stomachs, Taehyun took Soobin out into the sun. Taehyun gave Soobin his extra sprinkles from his ice cream cone. Taehyun cared so much for Soobin.

And Soobin, he understood Taehyun, really this time. They didn’t go into this as quickly as Taehyun had fallen in love with the moon. Their feelings were the same; Taehyun didn’t have to be scared about disrupting sunflowers in the field. 

“Before, I used to keep people away,” Taehyun confessed. “Everything that I had before…”

_'Burned a shadow behind me. I feel its gravity, I’m pulled down.'_

“Really changed me, and I don’t know if it’s for good or for worse. But I don’t want to let you go. Soobin hyung, I don’t know what I’d do, if you told me that you didn’t need me anymore.”

When had Taehyun started to cry? Soobin had caved in first, but the two of them shared their space equally. Warm palms on each other’s skin, cupping the back of their necks, or around their shoulders when they hugged. Soobin’s breath was on Taehyun’s neck, and he purposely turned his nose in, if just to be closer. 

“I don’t know why you’d think that,” Soobin whispered. “That I’d leave you behind somewhere. Taehyun, you make my shadows feel nonexistent.” 

Warm palms, smoothing up and down his back, and a mailbox spilling letters everywhere. “I think that I…”

What did Taehyun even think? Before, he wanted to just sleep, but that was before he met Soobin. He wanted to stay dreaming with him here forever. He wanted to love and trust again. He wanted to try.

“I know. I trust you. I think that with you, it’s different,” Taehyun confessed, until the feeling welled up so much in his chest that it began to force itself out of his throat. Love was the two of them pretending that they could fit on the small couch. Love as the two of them with their heart on their sleeves, facing each other just like how sunflowers tend to face each other instead of the sun, it was stale soda on rooftops and admiring the moon because the moon at least brought light for the darkest nights.

They’ll be fine.  



End file.
